Page 353 - PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Pride and Prejudice

Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common
flirt than she has been here. The officers will find women
better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her
being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any

rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without
authorising us to lock her up for the rest of her life.’
With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content;
but her own opinion continued the same, and she left him
disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however,
to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was
confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over
unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no
part of her disposition.
Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her
conference with her father, their indignation would hardly
have found expression in their united volubility. In Lydia’s
imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility
of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye of
fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with
officers. She saw herself the object of attention, to tens and
to scores of them at present unknown. She saw all the
glories of the camp—its tents stretched forth in beauteous
uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay,
and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view, she

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